


A Match Girl

by Papaveri



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, Spoilers, Spoilers up to chapter 40, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-26
Packaged: 2018-01-13 21:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1240927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Papaveri/pseuds/Papaveri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Historia thinks she wants her life to be like the flame of a match (delicate and pure, memorable in a cold winter), but she falls in love with Ymir. Ymir who's harsh, Ymir who's ugly, Ymir who doesn't hurt that much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Match Girl

It comes to a point where Historia thinks she wants her life to be a match: lighting up for a moment, warming someone’s hands to quietly die in a little, delicate blaze that will stay in the eyes for a couple minutes. Something inside her just wants to give up in a world that requires constant fighting but something else, the bright survivor that lights her eyes and makes her legs move and support her weight again when she falls (and she falls, oh, she falls so often) wants to keep moving; as a whole, she wants to go out, go out in the warmest demonstration of suicidal love and selflessness, but go out, give up, surrender beautifully.  
She becomes a soldier; her little hands press up against her chest in anticipation.  
 _She will show them._

When she meets Ymir, everything around them is in the dark (she meets her at night, she meets her as Christa). Ymir is tall and lanky, and ugly and selfish and she tells her she’s helping the poor running girl as if it was some step in a bigger scheme.  
Historia, the good Christa, feels as if she’s attacking something vital about her, but she doesn’t say anything yet.  
Ymir’s words become increasingly sharp, they smart more and more; Historia starts to retaliate and discovers Ymir not always replying (Ymir’s not really cruel, not on purpose, but she’s got this terrifying selfishness she can identify but prefers to ignore).  
When Ymir tells her to _live on_ , to live for herself, when she steps on her dreams of martyrdom as if they were some fundamental enemy of her worldview, Historia falls in love.  
(She falls in love as one falls in a well, actually: it’s dark and scary and wet and cold, snow hard against her face, but Historia guesses her heart had already broken arms and legs when she met her, so it doesn’t hurt that much).

Even though Ymir’s words echo every day in her mind, surrounded by titans Historia considers it again:  
 _I could go out, I could go out as the good Christa._  
(It’s supposed to be a revenge, really, a defense mechanism her little body has plotted against the world she must live in, but it feels more like a desperate only way out).  
And then, she tells her. Ymir is tall and selfish and ugly and cruel, her words bite into trembling Historia as hungry things with sharp fangs, and despite being in love Historia is still Christa and she confronts her, she barks back, she _fights._  
Her heart stops when Ymir jumps.  
Her heart stops when Ymir cuts her hand.  
Her heart stops, or starts beating faster, _she doesn’t know anymore!_ , her heart breaks and swells when Ymir becomes a monster in front of her and bites and scratches and devours and kills. The good Christa inside her is so terrified Historia can feel herself, her real self filling up her veins like the best mix of adrenaline and fresh oxygen.  
She sees Ymir fall and when she looks her in the eye with her pupils of a monster (that aren’t scarier than her regular pupils), Historia understands.  
In that instant, Historia casts everything away: her thorny family and her scratched, trembling knees and her need of shining eternity of a martyr, she casts away the good Christa (and, funnily enough, everyone will remember her).  
In that instant, Historia is just a girl in the most violent love, her life a match where she can win.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first time I post something here! I hope you liked it.  
> I'm kinda queasy about posting this because it's the first time I post fanfic in English for a big fandom in such a big site, but I think I had to do it eventually.
> 
> I wrote this back in December as kind of a Christmas present for my Tumblr followers. It's pretty much character exposition, not much happens in my fics, but I liked some of the imagery and I wanted to use it. The title is something new because the original Tumblr post was just named 'Fic'. I liked this play on words, even though it calls back to a fairytale that's not remotely related to my fic.
> 
> Both Christa and Ymir are still a bit hard to write for me, aw. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
